We are excited to announce that Luke has not been in the Hospital for a whole year!

I hope and pray that you all had a blessed Easter Sunday. We had a blessed day, as our family was once again all together at church, celebrating Christ's resurrection Day. It was at this time last year that Luke spent his last week in the Hospital. Praise God he has not been back since then. I look back on that week spent in the Hospital and remember what a difficult time it was, the hopelessness of the Dr.'s and time spent in the PICU was excruciatingly hard. But God was so faithful in bringing so much joy to our lives as it was after that stay that Luke began to smile again, we had waited a long time for that first smile and now we see it daily, what a difference a smile can make.

Daniel, Amy and Natalie all arrived home on April 1st. What a huge blessing it is to have them home again, they were ready to come home for the most part, though Daniel thought it would've been wonderful to spend some more time exploring Denmark and The Netherlands. Our schedules have pretty much gotten back to our old routine, with Daniel back to work full time, Amy back working at the church a few days a week and Natalie finishing up her senior year of high school. It's hard to believe that we have 3 children who will have graduated from High School soon.

Luke has been doing pretty good, though he has struggled a few days with a bit of a mystery sickness. He seems to be doing ok during the day, but at night he will run a fever and be on some oxygen. Good Friday was a hard night, I really had to battle with fear as it was that day last year that we ended up in the Hospital. I kept saying that God has not given me a spirit of fear, but He has given unto me a spirit of power, a spirit of love and a sound mind, which was a song that we used to sing in church. Luke had a high fever that night and was really struggling to breath, but I knew it was a battle against evil spiritual forces, the Bible says: in Ephesians 6:10Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. There have been times during these past few years that I've known that we are battling for Luke's life and this past week we have had to go to battle a few nights.

On Monday night Gordy, Isaiah, Daniel, Natalie, Josh, Skye and myself went to a Sonics game and when we came home Luke was struggling again with a high heart rate and low oxygen numbers. When he is like that he breathes very hard, I began praying and while I had my hand on his chest God heard my prayers and I could actually feel the healing power of Jesus flow through my hands and Luke's breathing immediately slowed down and his heart rate started coming down to where it was normal within a short amount of time. I can not even begin to explain how wonderful it was to see God at work before my very eyes. I know that God is able to do abundantly above what we can ever imagine. We just need to believe, in faith knowing that He will answer our prayers. Once again tonight it was the same scenario with the high heart rate and fever, I began to pray and God heard my prayers and Luke is now sleeping comfortably, Praise God. Please be praying with us that this will be our last night that we will have to deal with this mystery sickness.

We have lots of exciting things coming up in the future, but this blog has already gotten entirely too long. Next time I will write about the upcoming Missions trip I'm leading in May, about the Homeschool convention we are attending this weekend and Gordy's trip to Eastern Washington to have some much needed fun time golfing. Please pray that all will go well this weekend as we are going to be leaving the little ones behind, we will be home at night time, but will be gone all day Friday and Saturday. I'm extremely grateful that Tessa learned how to care for Luke while the girls were gone, she is babysitting and Auntie Cindy will be coming over to help in the mornings with getting all the kids ready for the day.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue